We’ve been talking now for months about how Obama’s success with small donors is the exception, not the rule. This week Public Campaign President Nick Nyhart, makes the case in Roll Call. As Nick points out

Loopholes in campaign finance rules allow presidential candidates to stretch the limits when collecting donations.

The news of Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) $150 million haul in September with an average donation under $100 combined with Obama's decision to opt out of the partial presidential public financing system gave political prognosticators and pundits the opportunity to declare the death of public financing. They signed the certificate and called the morgue.

This article in the Connecticut Post examines the money being raised in the battle for the House seat in the 4th district.  Incumbent Chris Shays (R) is facing Democratic challenger Jim Himes and both men are taking in huge sums of money from Wall Street heavyweights.  This big money war for a seat in Congress is a sharp contrast to what's going on with races for Connecticut's state legislature this year, where most candidates are participating in the new Clean Elections public financing program.

The closest most of us will ever get to a fancy presidential fundraiser is the story we read about it in the newspaper, but even that kind of access is increasingly restricted, as this article in the New York Sun describes. What are they hiding? Afraid the great unwashed are going to mock the kind of Chardonnay they're pouring out for the big check writers?

Christopher Hayes and Te-Ping Chen of The Nation co-authored this eye-opening interview with Nicole Sexton, who up until recently was a prominent Republican fundraiser and who became disillusioned with the way the political process has become distorted by fundraising and the quest for big checks.